Cuban Exiles Claim Opposition Figure Arrested “With Violence”

The Cuban Democratic Directorate exile group in Miami on Wednesday reported the arrest “with violence” in Cuba of opposition figure Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known as “Antunez,” and his wife, Yris Perez Aguilera, after authorities “raided their home.”

“We’re issuing a call for help for Antunez, his wife and all human rights activists who are suffering repression on the island,” said the group in a communique.

The exile organization denounced the fact that, while these type of allegedly arbitrary arrests are being made, “the Castro regime is trying to sell a reformist image that has nothing to do with the reality that exists within the country.”

Cuban authorities raided the home of the couple, members of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance, in Ciudad de Placetas, in Villa Clara province, and subsequently arrested them.

“They have us in police custody after they raided our home,” Perez Aguilera posted on her Twitter account early Wednesday morning.

It is believed that the couple is presently at the Police Training Unit in Santa Clara, according to what Damaris Moya Portielis, president of the Opposition Movement for a Free Cuba, told the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

The home of Antunez and Perez Aguilera was raided by Cuban authorities three times in February and “personal documents, as well as clothing and kitchen utensils” were seized.

According to the Council of Human Rights Reporters of Cuba, in May Cuban authorities arrested more than 1,000 people for political reasons, and so far this year around 5,000 people have been taken into custody on the Communist-ruled island, double the number of arbitrary arrests made during all of 2013.